


A Demonstration of Power

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Mind Control, Showing Off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5604067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While hunting for new friends, Erik and Charles discuss their powers and Erik finds Charles's quite intriguing ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Demonstration of Power

Erik still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Charles Xavier.

The man was so … so _bright_. He was practically bouncing around the hotel room, glowing with enthusiasm and excitement. It wasn’t that Erik _wasn’t_ looking forward to meeting his fellows but wasn’t Charles even slightly worried? Couldn’t he see any of the ways this might go wrong?

Apparently not. Charles just looked happy. He had perched himself on the table and swinging his legs like a child, sipping a glass of something that he’d poured from the drinks cabinet. He was smiling at Erik, practically beaming in fact. Erik wasn’t quite sure what was expected of him. He hadn’t quite managed to decide what he felt about some of this. He certainly hadn’t quite decided how he felt about Charles.

He suddenly wondered if Charles was plucking all this from his mind and glared at him suspiciously. Charles’s smile became innocent.

“If you broadcast it like that, I hear it. I can’t help it.”

“How deep does it go?” Erik asked.

“As deep as I want,” Charles replied easily. “If I wanted to dip to the bottom, I could. Casually though? It’s just … really, whatever you’re thinking about with a background hum of stuff you don’t really know you’re thinking about. That’s mostly like hearing people talk under water, a faint sort of babbling noise.”

Erik found that interesting. He sometimes got tired of hearing people talk when there were only a few people in the room and they weren’t talking much. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to hear everybody’s thoughts as well.

“What’s the range?”

“Varies. I can hear most people in this hotel, if I put my mind to it. Right now, it’s all just background noise. I don’t really notice it any more, unless any of them do anything particularly interesting.”

“And then you stick your nose in?”

“Like I said,” Charles said, grinning. “If you shout … ”

Erik rolled his eyes but he couldn’t say he blamed Charles. The amount of information you could get from reading people’s minds … it had to be fascinating, but also overwhelming. A thousand voices, just waiting to whisper to you …

“What else do you do?” he asked.

 _I can talk to you without anybody knowing._ Charles’s voice was as clear in his mind as if he were speaking aloud. _It’s quite easy. And you can answer too, if you try. Just think the words._

Erik felt stupid and so that was what he said.

_This is stupid._

_No, it isn’t. See, I hear you. It’s quite simple, just another type of thought. The only risk if you do it like this is that you might transfer more than you mean to. You can only receive exactly what I send but you can transmit basically anything – if I asked you a question and you answer like this, bits spill out that you might not mean to. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you anything, I’m not trying to pry._

Erik wondered if he would be quite so honest if it was his power. Yes, of course he would, if it was someone he knew or wanted to care about. If it weren’t though … oh, the use he could have made of the ability to tear into people’s minds, to find out every secret they had …

“Are you still in my mind?” he asked suddenly, uneasy.

“No,” Charles said. “I told you, Erik. I’m not trying to find out your secrets unless you want to share them with me. I do try, you know. Even with people who don’t know what I can do. It’s not … right to know everybody’s secrets that way.”

He sounded a little sad and poured himself another drink. Erik felt awkward. He hadn’t meant to blot out Charles’s brightness. He got up for a drink of his own, trying to think of something to say to break the silence.

“So what’s your range?” Charles asked, suddenly apparently bright again. “How far can you reach?”

“I’m not sure,” Erik admitted, a little embarrassed. Charles seemed to have done so much practise, be so aware of what he could do and Erik … well, he knew some of what he could do. Oh, he really did know that.

“Anything in this room,” he said. “I could move things in the rooms around us, if I wanted. It might be hard to aim them though.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out to feel the metal around him. It sang in this room, hummed in the others. If he tried to drag it to him, could he? Probably, with a bit of effort. Maybe with some practise, it wouldn’t require any effort. There was always further to go, always.

“Exactly,” Charles said softly. Erik glared at him and Charles smiled and held up his hands.

“I told you. I can’t help it if you shout.”

Erik threw a metal screw at him. Charles caught it, laughing. His eyes sparkled with glee and Erik felt the little touch of attraction that had been bothering him almost since he’d laid eyes on the man. He shoved it to the back of his mind quickly, not wanting Charles to read that. If Charles had, he showed no sign of it.

“Do you want to see the last thing I can do?” he asked.

“Why not?”

Charles smiled. He reached down and took the whisky bottle out again, then dug in the ridiculous fridge until he found what seemed to be a carton of orange juice.

“Do you like it mixed?”

“Not really,” Erik said.

Charles nodded, then poured whisky and orange juice into the glass. Erik raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was doing. Charles turned and held the glass out towards him.

“Drink this, would you?”

Erik was about to say that he didn’t want it but instead, he found himself reaching out, taking the glass and swallowing the mixture in a gulp. He stared at the empty glass, not quite sure what had just happened.

“It’s quite easy,” Charles said. “Usually. I can just tell you what to do and you’ll do it. I can do it like that, where you faintly know something has happened but don’t know what. I can make you obey without that feeling if it’s something easy that you’re not thinking about – is there a reason you’re opening the window?”

Erik blinked. He hadn’t even thought about it but now Charles had drawn his attention what he was doing, it seemed ridiculous. Irritated, he slammed the window shut.

“Stop that!”

“You wanted to see.”

Erik supposed that he _had_ said that. He would have to remember when talking to other mutants to be a little more cautious about that. Charles was grinning but as Erik looked at him irritably, it faded into a different sort of look. A thoughtful look.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I don’t want you to do it,” he said, folding his arms and glaring one of his best glares.

“No?”

Erik found himself moving closer to Charles. He wasn’t quite sure if that was Charles controlling him or just because he wanted to get closer to him to potentially punch him. Perhaps a bit of both. He stopped himself moving just to prove that he could and Charles grinned. Had he read Erik’s mind and realised he wanted to stop so let him stop? Was he still being controlled right now and just didn’t know it?

The idea was strange but also … oddly intriguing.

“Spending time with you could be just a little troubling,” he said. Charles grinned, apparently not at all ashamed – any why should he be? It was a truly glorious power after all. The things that you could do with it, the way you could _live …_

“There’s one last way it works,” Charles murmured. His fingers were still resting on his temple. Erik braced himself but he couldn’t feel anything in his mind. He watched Charles warily, noting vaguely just how blue Charles’s eyes were and how surprisingly red his lips looked. He’d noticed that before, it was … something that was odd about the man. Anybody else and Erik might have suspected lipstick but he had a feeling that in this case, it was just Charles being a very beautiful man.

It only took a step forward to bring them almost face-to-face. Here, he could kiss Charles, if he wanted to …

Charles reached up and put his fingers on Erik’s lips, holding him still.

“It’s easier if the person wants something,” Charles said, his voice was very soft. “I don’t really have to do anything to make somebody do something they want to do in the first place. And that’s all.”

Erik knew that meant he was free, that Charles wasn’t controlling him any longer and wasn’t intending to play this game any more. What happened now was his choice. He could – and _should_ walk away, perhaps tell Charles he was an idiot. It wasn’t a good idea to do whatever you wanted. He was already getting too involved in these people. Hadn’t life taught him that you were better on your own? That it was better not to get fond of somebody because people would use that against you …

But he didn’t walk away. Instead, he pushed Charles’s fingers away and kissed those irritatingly red lips. Charles kissed him back, his hands coming up to grab at Erik’s shoulders, nails digging in. Erik grabbed Charles around the waist and dragged him off his perch, pressing them close together. Charles groaned and kissed harder, then shoved Erik towards the bed with obvious purpose.

Erik let him. There was still a tiny part of him that was protesting, warning him that this could only lead somewhere dangerous, that he would regret this later …

 _Don’t think so much_. Charles’s mental voice was warm, reassuring. _Or at least, think about nicer things, would you? Like how you feel when I do this._

He did something with hands that made Erik gasp. He could worry tomorrow about the ramifications of involving himself with Charles Xavier.

Right now, he just wanted to focus on involving himself with Charles Xavier.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12dayschristmas


End file.
